According to Israeli government documents, the former leader of South Africa was trained by Israel’s intelligence agency in the 1960s; there are many parallels to be drawn between the Sochi and Berlin Olympics; meanwhile, a White House review panel member expresses his “surprise” in finding that the NSA’s data collection has not stopped a single act of terrorism. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Here’s a chance for all who think Obamacare is a socialist Big Government scheme to put their money where their ideology is: If you truly hate the Affordable Care Act, you must send back any of those rebate checks you receive from your insurance companies thanks to the new law.

Something interesting happens when hardworking, fiscally minded Americans find themselves on the public dole: They resent the government that lends a hand and feel guilty for accepting help. A major article from The New York Times documents the anxiety, frustration and confusion of a growing class of dependent Americans.

Andrew Breitbart, founder and publisher of America’s premier right-wing smear outfit, BigGovernment.com, has released yet another candid cam hatchet job, this one supposedly showing two professors at the University of Missouri instructing students on how to use violence to further the goals of the labor movement.

Authorities continue to investigate why Joe Stack of Texas flew his small airplane into the Austin offices of the IRS, but based on early reports and a tirade the attacker posted on the Internet, it had something to do with taxes, big government, corporate crime and bailouts. (continued)

Here’s a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose.

President Obama is gambling on America’s readiness to embrace a larger, more comprehensive form of government, but will it take? “Recovering Republican” Arianna Huffington argues that the system Obama favors is currently working best for oligarchs, not those losing their homes or worried about their health care, while Tony Blankley thinks Big Pharma is pitching camp in the White House.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist writes that “around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that [stimulus] plan. ... ” He also argues that “it’s possible to be dissatisfied, even angry, about the way the financial bailouts have worked while acknowledging that without these bailouts things would have been much worse.”

Instead of making the positive case for big government, or at least beginning to explain, let alone defend, what Sacramento does with all that money, California’s political class has instead opted for a four-pronged strategy: deny, scare, attack, then call for higher taxes.

Believe it or not, winning the war in Iraq was never the Bush administration’s highest priority. Saving its tax cuts was more important. That was once spoken of as a moral problem. Now, it’s a practical barrier to a successful outcome.